Category Archives: Uncategorized

My best fitness-adventure this week has been adult beginners gymnastics. Crazy-great surprise! I showed up wearing jewellery and lululemon, expecting some low-key spinning or whatever. Holy crap! The warm-up had some of the line exercises we did in grappling, and the fucking inchworm. Then we did a circuit, sixty seconds each of intense exercises that in this case were kind of gymnastic-y. Then we got to the gymnastics. I was the only complete beginner, so my degree of spinning around the bars was significantly more spastic and immediately-falling-off than everyone else’s. And my various jumps on the trampoline were the sloppiest and contained the most giggling.

I also had a llama adventure. This is an adventure where you go to a children’s petting zoo and let a llama bite your face, because the part of your brain that is supposed to prevent this is overcome with the part of your brain that screams “Llama-llama! Llama-kins!” Of course, it was a petting zoo, so it was a llama love-bite, not a llama tetanus-shot-bite. And it was also the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me ever, so there’s that.

Oh man, I actually tried going to the gym tonight, since I have been a complete slug for far too long. I’m not getting paid for this, but the ladies at Snap Fitness in North Battleford are very nice about showing me ways to use those machines that I don’t understand. I was wandering over to them and being, all, “I’m bored of my abs. I want my bum to look good, now.” And the lady would show me the cute-bum machine, and I would be incapable of operating it without further instruction because I am the stupidest person you know. While I was failing at the treadmill, some guy was watching me, while being on the treadmill, and I wanted to yell at him for staring at me being stupid instead of helping. But watching me fail is generally hilarious, so I can hardly blame him.

I finally managed to find that yoga class. So happy! There’s a proper hot yoga studio in North Battleford, this place is great! This wasn’t even actually hot yoga, but they cranked the hotness anyway, because they rule and this place is stupidly cold. (Actually, the cold snap is over, and Saskatchewan is now at a balmy -12. I am not being sarcastic, I am genuinely excited.)

I hit up a judo class. So different from Halifax! There were about 20 kids and maybe 5 adults. I’ll have to get used to martial arts being a bit different. Judo’s really cool! I learned some new stuff that was stuff I already knew, but differently. For example, breakfalls. Just doing them slightly differently suddenly makes me a dumbass amateur again. In judo they really fling you around for the breakfalls, which is fun and different. I was partnered with a ten-year-old girl, and I learned that ten-year-old girls can flip motherfuckers with the best of them. (In this scenario, I am the motherfucker.)

I’ve been having some pretty crazy times recently. Being the kind of person I am, I moved across the country, from Halifax to Saskatchewan, for a job! And now that I’m here, I’m closer than ever to figuring out what that job is! Haha, but seriously, I’m having fun meeting everyone in my office and working out what projects I’ll be heading up. I moved to the town of North Battleford, which is small compared to everything else I’m used to. Also, I’ve never been to the Prairies, and holyfuckinggod when people said cold they meant it. I live like a two minute walk from work and that length is kind of killing me. I bought hardcore winter clothes and my face goes numb! But my pride stops me from driving.

I bought my first car, so exciting. Ya’ll don’t know this about me, but my ability to get lost is pretty fabulous. And with a car, it increases exponentially! I tried going to yoga, and I wound up on the highway. I got one town over, explored that for a while. The point is, my attempts at working out have been stymied by the ridiculous cold and my own stupidity. Much like a bear, I’m compelled to stay inside and eat my roommate’s fudge, developing a layer of insulating fat.

Cool thing about my town. It has a Danish Bakery, and a Scandinavian Bakery. I had to do some delicious, cream-based investigation, to see how different these bakeries were. There are lots of cool things about my new town, but I don’t really care about the rest. I just want another cream puff. I’m finally hitting the gym tomorrow, this is very important. I actually got sincerely injured in that grappling tournament two months ago (my pec muscle), and with moving and all this craziness I haven’t worked out at all since then. I am going to completely embarrass myself! Yes!

I went to a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament in Truro today. Whoo! I got points and everything! Possibly my points were for takedowns, it’s a little hard to tell in the moment what the hell’s going on. Anyway, I had two fights and lost both. One was a tie and we had to go into overtime, which was fun. Whoever got the takedown first won. I… I did not get that takedown first. Important things from the tournament! 1. I got a new tournie t-shirt, which is good because my old tournie t-shirt has been getting skanky. 2. I got a brand new long sleeved shirt to wear for the fight, so I looked pretty while losing. 3. I learned to french braid my hair specifically for this. (It is possible I am dangerously shallow. Caution: No diving into Shannon.)

Also, I honestly considered backing out of my second fight because I swallowed someone’s hair and was half-choking for a while. Is this the lamest injury? Yes, yes it is.

Anyway, everyone was great and we all had fun! There were 13 ladies there this time, which is awesome! And they weren’t all from Bushido Kai! We actually got to have divisions and shit, and I met new people, just all so much fun.

I invented the combat hug last night. A combat hug is when you attempt to do a clinch, but it turns out you suck at just everything, and you wind up in an super-aggressive side-hug, instead. Really, I bet I could’ve thrown some knees from there. In the ring, I’m sure inventing moves mid-match at least gives you the crazy edge. So, yes, combat hugs, tell your friends. Or just hug them!

I’ve discovered I’m generally too polite to kick my partners in the head, which is bad because sometimes they need to learn. I’ve got good hips, so if I can see they’re not going to dodge my headkick I’ll just kick over their head. I’m a bad partner!

I came up with a great joke! You know how Tim Hortons sponsors kids soccer teams? And those teams are called TimBits? And you can drive by a game and see all the TimBits running around? So… free range timbits! Boom!

We had partners yoga for Valentines, so Kathleen was my yoga valentine. I am really sucky at partners yoga, of course, but it is ridiculously fun. My problem is I tend to freak out as soon as my feet leave the floor when a person picks me up. I can give piggybacks until the cows come home, but I whine like hell if someone gives me one. Also, for all my badass pushups, I am bad at benchpressing a person. This must be fixed. Anyway, Shanna had a lot of fun making all the poses into two-person poses, she’s a cool instructor.

My grappling tournament is in, like, three days! My brother called me yesterday and said he wants to compete, too. Yay! I didn’t know he could grapple, his formal training is all in Karate Kenpo. But it turns out he has some informal grappling, and the tournament is open, so he’s coming in. He was worried he may go up against me, and was all, “I can’t get beat up by my little sister, I just can’t”, but men and women are separate (like God intended), so we’re good. So, now I’m imagining some comic-book scenario in which my brother and I fight crime. Or perpetrate it, I’m cool either way, I just want to wear a mask and have family time.

Other important grappling news! I finally got a recruit! I’m always trying to get, like, every woman I know to come to the women’s grappling class, and one of the ladies I bug finally came. Judy, from kickboxing class. Oh yeah, I’m gonna make a fellow MMA fighter, this will be awesome. Maybe we can fight crime. Really just looking to be Wolverine, here. This is how I assess every single situation I encounter.

Fun thing at work! I mentioned this article to my boss, about a legal guide to the apocalypse in New York, and he was all, “Hey, we should buy that!” So I actually led to a book being bought at the library. This is what being relevant feels like, my word. I’m just bragging here, you can ignore me.

Oh yeah, I also accidentally revealed today that I’m an alien spy, sent under deep cover. The problem, you see, is that whenever I try out a new hairstyle, I don’t really know if it’s a way humans actually wear their hair. So I had to ask if I had a human hairstyle today. I did, as it turned out, but the secret’s out. Now, to return to the lonely vacuum of space.

I have been having some fun times since the last time I chatted with you people, let me say! Last night, I went to my first opera, and saw my first UFC match! I wore the same outfit, too, because I figured Bubba Ray’s Sports Bar could do with some class. (Dammit, I own a tuxedo jacket, and I will wear it.)

So, opera! I learned, when people are singing in that crazy operatic tone, I cannot understand a flipping word. Well, maybe I got, like, 1/20 of the words, tops. The fact that it was Dido and Aeneas, set in a high school, without changing the plot to fit the setting for some reason, did not help. And then, at the end, Dido got up on her funeral pyre and did not set her goddamned self on fire! That was the one thing I was looking forward too! Who the hell builds a funeral pyre and then stabs herself? Prom Queen Dido, apparently.

But UFC was awesome, so awesome. I went with junior kickboxers (also went to the opera with them), and they were excited I was there because I’m the only grappler in the group. So I could explain what was going on whenever the fight went down to the ground. I’m useful! Anyway, I never really got the whole sports bar thing before now, but it’s seriously fun! We all yelled at the screens during the boring parts, and cheered during the awesome parts, and it was great. I really want to talk to people about the cool parts, too. The boring parts sucked, but when it got great, it was so great.

I did grappling today, and I had a bit of a weird little breakthrough. We do this thing called pummelling, which is demonstrated here. Basically demonstrated, anyway, the way I do it I grab on really tight, but whatever. It’s basically hug-dance fighting, and for some reason I have been completely crap at it, until today! I just got it! Anyway, I’m just happy. It makes up for the fact that I was learning some other thing where I flip my partner over her head and onto her back while I’m doing a shoulder stand under her and I was really shit at it and hurting my partner and I just had to stop because I was not getting it. It is hard to tell directions when you’re upside down and spinning!

Kickboxing yesterday! I didn’t have any need to wear my head gear, but I did put on my shin guards. As soon as I put them on, I told Gerald they made my legs look fat and I didn’t want them anymore, so that is my new joke about shin guards, be ready for that. In reality-land, though, they make my legs sweat like a police informant. Who would expect heavy, leather encasements for your legs would cause sweat? I am baffled. In the end, we didn’t do kicks so I had them on for nothing, but Tammy had fun kicking my legs anyway, so I’m happy! We also did a drill that was all about blocking uppercuts, over and over again. Holy crap, hard on the boobs. My awesome sportsbra has padding for extra protection, but it still hurt. I need some kind of Xena bra, that’ll help. Solve every problem I’ve ever had, probably.